After carefully reading and digesting two items in today’s Daily Press I have come to the inescapable conclusion that it is all Barney’s fault. What, you may ask, could that saccharine-sweet purple dinosaur do to upset me? That is besides being purple and saccharine-sweet? Read on and, I’m sure, you will blame Barney too.

Article #1 – spread across pages 1 and 4 talks about a local fish kill caused by warm, shallow water that is also oxygen-depleted. Authorities are unsure about the cause of this condition and who is responsible for disposing of the stinky, silver fish. This situation is serious. However it’s cause is obvious and easily repaired.

Article #2 on page 2 reports, “… Researchers have calculated that dinosaur flatulence could have put enough methane into the atmosphere to warm the planet during the hot Mesozoic era. Like gigantic prehistoric cows, sauropod dinosaurs roamed widely. … their plant digestion was aided by methane-producing microbes…. Methane [has]… as much as 25 times the climate warming potential as carbon dioxide….”

Anyone who has stood down-wind of a cow can understand this concept. We don’t know if Barney is a sauropod, but we can be certain is not a carnivore. The fact that he is disgustingly sweet and purple indicates that he dines exclusively on sugar beets and purple kool-aid, leading to mega-flatulence. Young dinosaurs don’t just pop up out of nowhere, so we can assume that he has relatives roaming around the woods.

In addition we know that Barney has extended relatives roaming the world. Godzilla, Swamp Thing and Creature from the Black Lagoon seem to be vegetarian. We’re not sure what Godzilla eats other than sky-scrapers. However, it’s obvious that Swamp Thing and Creature from the Black Lagoon dine on water plants and algae, which become “aromatic” in hot weather. Can you imagine the resultant odor once they’ve been digested by Barney and his relatives?

In conclusion, I assert that Barney and his family’s gaseous emissions are directly responsible for the lack of oxygen and warmer temperatures, especially since Swamp Thing and Creature from the Black Lagoon spend most of their time in water and Barney needs an occasional bath.